What Lens Should I pick For Nature and scenery Photography?

What lens should I choose for nature and landscape photography?

[b]Lens[/b]

Quite often when you buy your first Slr (single lens reflex) camera, it will come bundled with a lens. Some market are flexible and will let you choose a dissimilar lens (with varying cost) to take with your camera body.

The lens is just as important as the body you choose, and will decide the potential of your images.

The gap ,break of the lens is important, but in terms of choosing a lens, the lower the number, represents how wide the lens can open, and how fast it can work. This is because the wider a lens can open, the more light can be let in and the faster an image can be taken. The gap ,break is represented by 'f.' and the lower the number, the wider it gets. So, a lens that is 50mm with an f/2.8 is pretty fast. Why would you want this? It means you can take pictures speedily even when you are handholding the camera.

There are commonly three types of lenses you can choose; Standard, Telephoto and Wide Angle. Lenses can also be 'fixed' or 'zoom'.

What does this mean?

Zoom and fixed lens

Well, a zoom lens will have two numbers, say 80 - 200mm. This means that it can take images from 80mm to 200mm (from a proper view to fairly close up). A fixed focal lens or 'prime' lens will not zoom in and out, but just provide one viewpoint. These lenses are often more costly because although they do not have the flexibility of the zoom lenses, they are of higher potential and can regularly take pin sharp images. However, the zoom lenses mean that you can carry one instead of three separate lenses and offers more possibilities to the mean photographer.

Standard lens

In film format, a proper or normal lens is colse to 40mm to 55mm, although 50mm is the closest to how the human eye works. This makes the lens very user amiable and convenient for many situations.

Telephoto lens

The telephoto lens is a widely used selection in wildlife photography. With a telephoto, you can stay a fair length back from the object you are photographing and close in on it. If you are photographing animals, quite often you do not want to disturb them, or else they will run away. Additionally, if you are on safari, you cannot get to close to perilous animals - if you are in a zoo, you often have to see animals from afar. Telephotos can be from 85mm up to 1200mm. The recommended lenses for wildlife is 300mm - 400mm for land animals and 600mm for birds (since they are often far away).

With a telephoto lens, especially for wildlife, it can be worth spending more on a fast lens (with a low gap ,break number) but this can be costly. It is worth seeing for a camera with the Is or Vr function - 'Image Stabilized' or 'Vibration Reducing' depending on the manufacturer. This means there is less shake when taking a photograph hand held (but it is best to use a tripod if you are using a long telephoto).

Wide-angle lens

Then there are wide-angle lenses, excellent for landscape. Because they can fit a lot into the picture, you can capture much of the landscape; foreground, a highlight and possibly the sky. As they tend to have a greater depth of field, it is easier to have sharp pictures. They are also amazing for building and architecture shots, as you can use the wide angle to give a great sense of space. They can vary from 10mm up to 35mm (but bear in mind the multiplication factor with a digital camera.)

Macro lens

If you want to take close up images, it is a good idea to buy a macro lens. Macro lenses of 90mm to105mm with an gap ,break of 2.8 are often a good choice. These can be great for pictures of insects or of small wildlife and plants.

Lens accessories

There are dissimilar accessories you can purchase in order to get other effects.

There are lens hoods, which attach to the rim of your lens, and provide a shade from the sun. This prevents flare; the yellow dots or beams that sometimes occur when you take a photograph with spellbinding sun.

Filters are an inexpensive and excellent way of adding color or special effects to your images. They also safe your lens from scratches and a lot of photographers will have a clear filter ready (regardless of whether they use digital or film) to put on a lens before they dream of taking it out.

Filters can come with an adaptor, in which you can slot quadrilateral shaped filters into it, or in a circular form, that you can screw on top of the lens. With digital photography, the use of filters for color and enhancement is less favorite because effects can be added later with digital editing software.

With film cameras, the estimate and types of filters are numerous; polarising for bringing out the sky and clouds, graduated for adding color to the sky, star filters for development stars and lights shine. Fellowships like Cokin, Hoya and Kood make a wide selection depending on your needs.